


My heart, my fellow traveller

by belantana



Category: Spooks
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belantana/pseuds/belantana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zaf and Fiona at Eid-ul-Fitr, in the year 2000. [spoilers to series 4.]<br/>Originally posted <a href="http://belantana.livejournal.com/57404.html">@eljay</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My heart, my fellow traveller

My heart, my fellow traveler  
It has been decreed again  
That you and I be exiled.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

 

\- -

 

The second his finger was off the doorbell, Zaf realised his mistake. He cursed his stupidity as the bell echoed through the house, and for a split second he actually considered running, like some ridiculous little schoolboy. What was he _thinking?_

Too late to change his mind now. The street was dark, quiet. He looked for the moon above the trees. No stars. Never any stars.

It was a long time before Fiona opened the door. She was wrapped in a bathrobe, her hair wet. Zaf dredged up his most wretched expression. "Sorry, sorry. Did I wake the baby?"

She stared at him for a second, startled, before relaxing, the small margin that she ever relaxed. "No, it's fine. He's been screaming all day and I think he's finally exhausted."

Zaf recognised relief in her voice, and realised that at seeing him she must have expected the worst. She looked tired, and restless. Three months now at home with the baby and Adam's op in god-knows-where had just been dragged out by another few days. He felt doubly stupid.

"Adam's not here," she said, not unkindly.

"Yeah, I know."

He'd missed his chance for the proper greeting. He was considering making up some excuse that Adam had asked him to drop in on her (at nine o'clock at night?), when she opened the door wider and waved him in.

"It's okay, it's late. I just wanted to – "

"Come in, Zaf. It's freezing. I'll just get some proper clothes on."

He waited in the kitchen. Stupid, he thought again, not to mention presumptuous. Zaf hadn't known Fiona when her name was Amal Sukkareih (his stint in Damascus had unfortunately not required presence at those kind of parties). He knew her only as Fiona Carter, who married his best friend, who sat at the desk across from him until her belly got too big to be decent. The time they had spent together without Adam present could probably be counted in minutes.

But here he was. He deposited his aunty's _seviyan_ , carried stickily across town, on the kitchen counter. It occurred to him that Fiona might not even know it was Eid. What was it, four years she'd been in Syria? Five? No reason to remember it fondly.

She came down the stairs, stood against the counter scraping her hair into a ponytail. "So, Zafar, do tell me how on earth you got away from your family tonight."

Zaf held his grave expression. "Well, don't tell anyone, but sometimes I use my incredible ninja skills outside of the job."

She laughed, relieving Zaf's nerves a fraction. He proffered the plate. "And I smuggled out some party food."

Fiona raised an eyebrow. "Am I your charity case?"

"Would you mind? The only time I say prayers is when I'm pretending to be a terrorist. I need all the good deeds I can get."

Another smile. She was collecting up papers, piling them squarely under an empty baby bottle. "I'm terrible company, I'm afraid. The only person I've talked to all day isn't even a person yet and has only cried back at me. To think this time last year..." She trailed off. "Sorry, I suppose you want to get back to your family."

Zaf didn't know how to explain that the Zaf everyone knew at Six (easygoing, impetuous, the centre of anything fun and everything mischievous) never quite made it back to his family. He shrugged. "No hurry. If you'd like some company."

"Well, I was going to spend the evening with Adam's Monty Python tapes. If we play them quietly enough that Wes doesn't think he's missing out. And put them back exactly in the right order."

Zaf found himself smiling his first proper smile of the evening. "Okay," he said. "I'm in."

 

\- -


End file.
